I would belong to her body and fucking soul. She could order me to do anything and I would, regardless.

That’s not freedom.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to curse. I hadn’t found freedom. I’d just replaced one prison with another.

My head swam as I closed my eyes. I’m fucked.

The sound of the door locking gave me something to latch onto, but I let myself drift—welcomed the vagueness, the coldness, ignoring the intermittent shivers and lightheadedness.

Sighing, I let myself tumble back into memories.

The stars above glittered in the black velvet sky. A small flurry of snowflakes made their way into my pit when the wind blew from the northeast.

Frostbite was my only friend and I lay on the icy ground with only leaf matter and mud for insulation.

I made a promise.

The first opportunity, I would kill myself. This wasn’t a life. It was servitude. I would be better off dead than alive and doing the devil’s work.

Crossing my seventeen-year-old fingers, I swore on the moon.

“I will kill myself to avoid more orders. I’ll put myself down like the predator they’ve trained me to be.”

My eyes flew open. I’d forgotten that promise. It’d been pushed to the depths of my mind as more and more travesty was layered upon me.

But I could keep that promise now. I didn’t have to search for someone to obey, so I could fall back into old patterns. I could control my own fate for once.

The pill.

My head flopped to the side, looking toward the wardrobe. I couldn’t keep putting people around me at risk. I was too messed up; I needed too much help. To think I could change was a fairy-tale. I wasn’t the handsome knight who won the girl—I was the scarred troll whose only purpose was to be killed.

It was time to end it.

The day my handler tossed me out, he’d given me a goodbye gift. His parting order had been to swallow the pill and erase myself from existence. I fought the command for days, not wanting to die.

But every day I suffered a slow death of misery.

Zel wasn’t my cure after all. There was no cure for my disease.

Rolling onto my elbows, I hoisted myself up amongst multitude of aches and spasms. The beating from Poison Oaks made my muscles stiff and unmovable. More blood gushed down my calf and thigh as my heart pumped harder with exertion.

Putting pressure on my leg hurt like a motherfucker, but I walked like normal, forcing my body to move around the injury. I’d worked with worse. I’d gone days with a broken femur or collarbone to finish a mission before I was given any medical care.

The two slashes Zel gave me were nothing.

I left a trail of red behind me as I entered the wardrobe and shoved aside rows and rows of black attire to reach the safe hidden in the back. Squashed into the racks, hidden by cashmere and cotton, I punched in the fourteen digit code and cranked open the door.

My old life greeted me in a gust of memories.

“It’s complete. Do you feel the brotherhood, the shared power and awareness?” my handler asked, stepping back and surveying his handiwork. He passed me a mirror. I held it up, angling to see over my shoulder.

My back had been transformed from adolescent skin into a canvas of disaster. Every symbol closed my throat in fear—they’d marked me forever. I would never be free.

Keeping my despair hidden, I nodded. “Yes, sir.” Those two little words. The only conversation we were allowed. Every response required nothing more than ‘yes, sir.’

“You did good. You took a while to see reason, but you obeyed in the end.” He slapped my burning shoulder, smearing fresh blood from the tattoo. “Do you agree?”

My eyes flickered to the small boy’s corpse in the corner of the room. Lifeless, blue, starting to smell. I’d done that. It’d taken me weeks to break, but they’d done it.

I was theirs.

“Yes, sir.”

The gun lay like a sleeping enemy, resting beside five hundred thousand in cash, and a small medicine bottle with one word on the label.

Konets. Russian for ‘end.’

This was the end.

Unscrewing the lid, I tipped the innocent blue pill onto my awaiting palm and stared. What would hell be like? Would I survive more unhappiness?

I’d passed up all rights to go to heaven on my seventh birthday. I knew I had no chance of finding the pearly white light people spoke of.

Looking down at my leg, I frowned at the soppy wetness of my trousers. The blood hadn’t stopped. I could just bleed to death.

Take the pill.

It would be fast. Hopefully not too painful.

Working my throat, I tried to create enough saliva to swallow without needing water. My dry mouth refused to cooperate.

I couldn’t do anything right.

The weight of everything was suddenly too much, and I bowed my head against the edge of the safe. I would rest for a moment, then find a glass of water. A few more minutes before I died.

I slipped into a semi-trance state and didn’t hear the footsteps until it was too late.

My reactions were compromised. I no longer cared.

Something hard cracked against the back of my skull, and I plummeted like a rock.

I was out cold before I hit the floor.

* * *

I came to with the sharp prick of someone stitching my leg. I recognised the pull, the tightness. It’d been over two years since I’d been stitched back together, and I found in my fuckedupness that I missed the sensation of being repaired.

My head hammered with every sluggish beat of my heart, and I couldn’t swallow the foul taste in my mouth.

Maybe this time I could be put back together the right way.

My gut twisted. The pill! Did I take it and this was hell? That didn’t explain the swelling on the base of my skull or the soft murmur of voices. Someone knocked me out, and I guessed they’d used one of the smaller statues sitting on the tables around the room.

My eyes shot wide and I sucked in a breath. Zel bowed over my leg, her forehead furrowed, lips pursed in concentration. Two fingers pinched my skin together while she pulled a needle and surgical thread through the wound.

My hands clenched as the rush of conditioning doused me with violence. My labouring heart beat faster as Hazel touched my thigh. I wanted to scream at her to run, but the sharp pinprick of pain from the needle helped me retain my self-control. Shame filled me. I was addicted. They’d turned me into an addict of agony.

I clutched the bedspread, panting with heat, shivering with chill.

Her eyes rose to meet mine, bright green filling my world. “I have no idea what I’m still doing here. But I couldn’t walk out the door when I saw you holding that pill. I know what you were going to do.” Her eyes flickered to a medic sitting on the other side of the bed. Masked, dressed in white, his blue eyes never stopped looking at us. She’d brought a bodyguard? Or was the medic supposed to be the one sewing me up?

I blinked, trying to understand.

“The minute this is done I’m leaving, and I never want to see you again,” Zel muttered.

My heart tripled its beat, but I nodded. It was the only way.

Zel stabbed the needle in my skin, deliberately punishing me. “He wanted to numb the area while I worked, but I thought you might like the pain.” Her eyes held a silent conversation.

I know you self-harm, and I figured this would be what you wanted.

I nodded, battling past my headache. “Thank you.” I couldn’t say it out loud so I forced the message silently. I didn’t mean to hurt you.

Apologizing wordlessly wasn’t enough. She deserved a heart-felt apology. She deserved me on my fucking knees begging for forgiveness.

Keeping every part of myself on high alert, I captured her bloody glove-covered hand and squeezed. Swallowing hard, I murmured, “I’m so sorry. I have no excuse for what happened, and I know there’s no chance you’ll forgive me. Just…” I met her eyes, staring hard. “I need you to know you’ve helped me more than anyone, and I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you. I didn’t mean to.”

She pulled her hand away. “You could’ve fooled me. The look in your eyes, Fox. You weren’t all there. I think you need to find proper treatment.”

I wanted to tell her everything. Then and there. I didn’t care anymore about secrecy or what they’d do to me if they found out. I just needed it to be freed from inside me.

There’s a witness.

I looked at the medic. His masked face was blank; body tense. I shut down. I couldn’t discuss what I was in front of him.

Zel caught me looking at him. “Don’t worry. He won’t touch you.”

I frowned, gritting my teeth as she poked me with the needle again. “Why are you the one sewing me up? Do you have medical training?”

Zel’s lips flickered into a tiny smile. “He’s not doing this as I don’t want him in danger. You tried to kill someone who you knew—what would you do to a stranger?” Her eyebrow raised. “I have basic CPR and what I studied to earn a receptionist job at a doctor’s practice. But I’m not flying blind. Before you woke up, he helped.” Nodding at the medic, she added, “He checked your wounds while you were out and agreed nothing internally is damaged.” Her lips twisted into a wry grin. “I’m a good sewer. Ask Clue. I can crochet with the best of them, and I figured this couldn’t be much different.”

My eyes popped wide, flaming my headache. “Stitching a leg is completely different than stitching a damn pillow.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Well, I think I’m doing a damn good job and considering I’m battling the urge to stab you multiple times with this tiny needle for what you did, you can fucking sit there and let me finish.” Fire lit her eyes. “If you think you can stop me, or if you move too fast, that lovely gentlemen over there will dose you up with anaesthesia so fast you’ll be out cold, and when you wake, I’ll be gone forever.”

The needle stabbed me hard, deliberately rough. “Understand?”

Instead of being cowered by her tirade, my fucking cock thickened. My heart pumped lust thick and fast, and all I could think of was kissing her. I wanted so fucking much to be normal so I could hug her and kiss her, and thank the universe for giving me an angel.

“As long as you’re inflicting pain, I can keep it together.” The admission made Zel look up. I lowered my voice, throwing an annoyed glance at the medic. “I want you to know. Everything about me. Maybe then you can understand. I want you, Zel. The thought of you leaving fucking kills me.”

Her hands shook—the only sign of emotion. Her eyes tore away from mine, and she resumed her stitching.

We didn’t speak again as she finished sewing me up. Her touch was light and gentle, but every stab of the needle gave me what I craved. Somehow, she created a new sensation. Mixed with pain and sweetness, making me surrender to her hypnosis, giving me the strength to ignore the conditioning just for the moment.

I fell into a trance. When I next opened my eyes the medic was gone and Zel had stuck crisp, white bandages over the stitched-up wounds. It was only then I noticed she’d cut off the leg of my trousers.

Her eyes met mine before she ever so carefully, ever so hesitantly, touched a large scar on my shin bone where they’d snapped my leg and then pinned it back together after a mission.

I sucked in a breath, clenching my fists. Without pain the conditioning echoed in my brain.

“Did you do this snowboarding as a child? Or perhaps falling off a motorbike when you were a teenager?” Her voice stayed low, none of the anger and heat from before.

She wanted to know.

Joy lit my heart. She wouldn’t leave until I explained. I’d answer any fucking question she had if it helped her forgive me.

For now emotions between us were pure, almost as if the fight had cleared the air for utmost honesty. “No.” My own voice shocked me. I’d never spoken to anyone about my past. Ever. Cold chills darted down my back.

She won’t forgive you. She’ll hate you even more when she learns the truth.

“I’m waiting, Fox. Tell me who you are.”

She’d look at me with terror and loathing. She’d feel it was her duty to report me. I’d be locked up in another cage and made to stand trial for what I’d done. Overwhelming fear cracked my heart. “No.” I couldn’t do it after all.